Qtrax and Universal Music Group announce a deal for free music

At the end of January a service called Qtrax had what may have been the most controversial launch to date for an online music service. Qtrax promised 25 million free and legal downloads, leading to so much interest their website had to be taken off line for a few hours, but that wasn't what people were talking about. Instead nearly all the discussion revolved around the selection of music available, or more accurately the lack of any music. It looks like that's going to be changing as their talks with Universal Music Group (UMG) seem to have come to an agreement to allow Qtrax to offer songs from their catalog.

At the time of the ill-fated January launch, apparently timed to create industry buzz during the annual MIDEM music industry conference, Qtrax executives were claiming to already have agreements in place with each of the four major labels; a claim which was quickly debunked by representatives of the labels themselves. This time around the label in question issued a joint statement with Qtrax, verifying that the deal is in fact real, although small details like whether an actual contract is in place are a little fuzzy right now.

Qtrax spokeswoman Shamin Abas told The Associated Press"All of UMG's music available digitally will be available for free, legal downloads on Qtrax."